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International collaborations and world wide communication
A Communications Resource Teacher, reflects on the importance of an understanding of world
communication and collaboration for her students.
By Janet Barnstable
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 'm a teacher at Percy Julian Junior High School in Oak
Park, Illinois. Having been a teacher for 39 years, I've experienced
many initiatives to engage the learner and make the educational experience
more meaningful. Never in all those years have I seen students work
harder and learn more than they do with international collaborations
and world wide communication. It's a great time to be a teacher! Currently
I'm working in District #97; half time as a classroom teacher and half
time as district Web producer.
I designed my job title, Communications Resource
Teacher, to reflect the essential understandings of world communication and
collaboration with my students.
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"What was unique however, was that the site appears to be created by
one group, not three groups geographically separated."
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 uring the
1999-2000 school year I taught a "Virtual Classroom" class which won first prize
in the Virtual Classroom Contest by collaborating intensely with Gakashuin Girls
High School in Japan and Marist Penhurst College in Australia. Students created a
highly interactive totally original site called Castles, Parcels, and
Metatarsals which celebrates holidays in the three countries; some holidays
shared, some totally unique to each country. Usual to a site created by students,
everything was totally original: the artwork, midi music, QuickTimeVR, and Real
Video clips. What was unique however, was that the site appears to be created by
one group, not three groups geographically separated. Chris & Janette
(Australia), Mariko and Kazuo (Japan), and I met weekly in a live ICQ chat on Saturday mornings to coordinate from
the adult end what was happening with the students. Students collaborated through
a forum, e-mail, and the working Web site where they could upload work for the
others to critique, download pictures or text that one of their partners had
created for them, or edit something and put it back on the work site.
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 yberTeen Mag, is
a magazine project currently in its third year. It originally started
as a part of the Virtual Classroom Clubhouse. Unfortunately, neither
the VC Contest or Clubhouse are still active. CyberTeen has taken on
a life of it's own. Current participants are from Inami Art Club, Japan,
Scola Media, San Benedeto, Rome, and Percy Julian, Oak Park. The thing
that all of us missed the most when the VC Clubhouse closed was the
interactivity possible through the forum, so I created one. You can
look at the postings,
but not post unless you are a member of CyberTeen. Teachers can join
us if they wish.
I've also arranged for a weekly video conference
with Jennifer and her class at North Dublin
National School Project. It's 8 a.m. here and kids come in before school
(which starts at 9 a.m.) and 2 p.m. in Dublin where kids stay after school (which
is over at 2 p.m.). I first connected with the school in 1996 through the Virtual
Classroom Contest. Jennifer came to the school a year later and we started the
weekly connection. Kids talk about everything from what they're eating to Beanie
Babies to justifying the American presence in Kosovo to the conflict in Ireland.
It's not unusual in the middle of a conference for one group or the other to just
break into song!
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"We've created tours of our school, Dublin's taken us on a tour to an art
exhibit."
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n the time
between conferences students plan some of the things they are going to discuss
the next week. Though this was meant to be a social contact, students produce
many things for each other. We've created tours of our school, Dublin's taken us
on a tour to an art exhibit. The group that was graduated in June of 1999, had
been participating in these conferences for two years. There were sad goodbyes
the last day, with promises to e-mail. This year, both groups are new.
The students participating in these projects
represent a wide variety of age groups. The nice thing about this group is that
age has never become an issue. The students' focus on the project they are
working on and whether the students on the other end are living up to their end
of the bargain. In the Virtual Contest group: the Oak Park kids were ages 11-14,
the Gakushuin girls were ages 16-17, and Marist boys were ages 14-16. In
CyberTeen's forum all three country's participants are middle school ages 11-14.
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 his year we've taken on a school district project. At the request of
our Multicultural Education
Center, we're adding to their Web presence by creating photos, QTVRs, and
text for some of their artifacts from around the world. Oak Park school can
borrow the actual artifacts to use in their classrooms and other schools can
benefit from visuals and information. So far, the students have completed their
work on Africa.
Postcards from Paul is a site
we're initiating this year which extends the legend of Paul Bunyan around the
world. Students write tall tales about natural landmarks that could have been
created by Paul Bunyan. With help from kids who live in other places, kids create
cards with pictures from their travels, then write a postcard as if Paul were
writing home after one of his adventures. The working site is not on our district
server, so that the kids can have total control of uploading files and creating
proper directories. In response to student suggestions we've added games and current
weather to the site. We're hoping to find other students who want to share our
fantasy and add to it.
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"Frank received no grade for this work, yet he worked diligently to
complete this task during his summer break."
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 hen I say
that students work harder and longer and produce more than I've ever seen before,
it goes without saying that they also do this by working beyond the classroom. I
was contacted by a Shu-Chin, a teacher from Taiwan who was working with 11-13
year old students in the study of English. She asked if there would be a student
who was willing to record words so that her students could learn how the sounds
were made. One of my students volunteered to complete this task. Frank, during
his summer between 7th and 8th grade, spend many weeks recording words. He'd save
them as a single file, attach them in an e-mail to me, and I'd separate them into
individual files and forward them to Taiwan. All classes were over with for the
year and Frank received no grade for this work, yet he worked diligently to
complete this task during his summer break.
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 or this year's students, I've also created a closed group on e-groups. It's a members only group, just for
the students in my classes. Parents are invited to join, but no one is approved
for membership unless I know who they are. This site allows us to maintain
various databases, upload files, list links for projects in progress, create/take
polls, and post messages. It also has a calendar, so I can remind the kids of
upcoming events, work due, schedule changes, or even days when there is no
school. Students who might hesitate asking a question in class, can e-mail me
directly or address the group. I have a few students for whom this is a really
good way to keep on track. It has also provided a way for the different sections
to communicate on projects. It doesn't matter if a collaborator is in Australia
or just on another team in the same school. If they don't physically see each
other at all, there has to be another means of communication. It also helps the
kids to learn to communicate effectively. When you can't poke someone and say
"listen to me" or shout them down, you have to be able to use words convincingly
to get your ideas accepted.
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or
the second year now I've joined the Pathfinder collaboration from Taiwan.
This is an attempt to have junior high students in Taiwan begin to learn
Web design while also communicating in English. Last year we participated
in "A Day in Our School." This year we are working on "A Special Holiday."
There is contact with the Taiwan students on their "holiday forum,"
but the Web work is completed in each school as a separate site. Our
Holiday Work
is mirrored on our District site.
At the beginning of the year, the new
students need to learn how to make animated gifs, since we try as much
as possible to use original work on our sites. I'm working with primary
teachers on a project called Fairy
Tale and Folk Tale CyberDictionary. This year I had the 7th and
8th grade kids use the little kids drawings from their stories, animate
them, and put them back into the dictionary. They delighted the little
kids, and learned about animation themselves. Some of the teachers even
e-mailed to let them know how amazed their students were when they saw
their pictures move.
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 ust recently, our local Educational Service Center asked for students
to create a Tobacco Free Web
site (by middle school kids, for middle school kids) and to present this at
the Illinois Student Technology Conference. Of
course, I said yes. What's one more project? The kids are really excited about
creating it; they're not sure yet if they're excited about presenting at a
conference. One student found a great program, created in Australia, that easily
creates Flash-like effects. I was going to buy it for school, but found out it
was Windows only. After several e-mails with the creators, I purchased two
copies that are currently licensed to two students. When the license needs to be
transferred to other students, the company will do that for me also. I have found
that it never hurts to ask, and have passed that on to my students.
They are expected to check with sites for any
pictures they want to use. I do give them a "form letter" that they can alter to
fit the particular picture(s) they want, but they send the request.
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"They value my opinion,
but are not afraid to voice an idea that they believe is better than what I've
suggested."
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know all
this sounds as if it's several years work, not something that can be done in one
year, by one class. In a way it is. There are 40 students who are in the
Virtual Classroom classes at Julian. They all interact with each other and all do
some things on all the sites, but each student concentrates on one thing more
than others. I can look around the room at any time and see someone working on
Paul's Postcards, while someone else is photographing an artifact to create a
QTVR for the Multicultural Center. Over in the corner is a group of girls who
really enjoy turning primary kids' drawing into animations for their dictionary
stories. Another student might be at the keyboard recording a midi file at the
same time that someone else is typing the text for the Harry Potter biography, or
the Tobacco Free site. Another student might have a teacher from their core team
at a computer looking at midi files that the teacher wants for background music
on their own site. They also help teachers create staff bios. Some of our
projects have a beginning and an end. Some continue on from one year to the next.
In all of them the students are in charge of content, quality, and completion. We
have large group meetings, and I meet with small groups. They value my opinion,
but are not afraid to voice an idea that they believe is better than what I've
suggested.
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find that I learn new things from every group of kids I teach. I
teach what I know and we discover together things none of us know ... yet! We
figure out together how to find out what we need to know to continue with our
project, or make a program work. It's a great time to be a teacher, an awesome
time to be a learner, and a wise school system that encourages everyone in the
school building to experience both roles.
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